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So yeah, all this talk today about A Levels, and everyone having a degree nowadays has been getting me down re. next year. I'm going to be fucked, I can tell. Even if I get the 2.1 I'm predicted, the jobs'll just go to people who know people, or have had internships, won't they?

I've not managed to get an internship for any of the summers I've been at uni, probably due to my fairly average A Level grades, and lack of contacts, and reckon this'll really hold me back next summer when I graduate. I suppose what I'm asking is, what can I do during final year that'll add to my employability (besides working my arse off for a good degree).

ill go straight into the DIP (irish system ftw), which is essentially a 4th year of uni for me, where i am a TRAINEE TEACHER. after that ill *probably* be able to get a job teaching english/history, hopefully at the one where ive been working with autistic kiddies for their exams. snice school, i know a few people there, most of the kids know me from when i was YOUNG AND COOL.

i keep meaning to look into whether my degree will let me work stateside or not. it does for AUSTRALIA tho i think, so if i feel the urge to be harassed by millions of poisonous insects, snakes and assorted asshole animals, ill start filling out forms :D

I'm just trying my best not to think about it - probably not the best idea though.
I don't have any idea what i want to do either. I just wanna get a 2:1 hopefully and see whats happenning in the job world.

Yeah, it's pretty terrifying. I've convinced myself I'm physically unable to come back and live at home too, having moved away to Manchester from sleepy rural Hertfordshire, I end up counting down the days when it comes to Summer, so don't know what I'd do if I had to come back here full time.

doodthatkicksarse, I wish I had plans :( As it is, think I'm just going to do what Harman's going to do, which is just see how things are when I graduate. I'm studying German and Business and Management if that helps, and ideally would like a job in marketing, but then wouldn't everybody. Wahhhh.

I did a winter placement with a firm who encouraged me to apply again in summer, by which time they'd fired half their workforce including my contact and had reduced their intake to about 3 people, none of whom were me.

I've got a team leader job over this summer. In the company I'm in it's higher that the position I'd enter as a graduate and that to me is rather scary. Would taking a gap year and having a years management experience on my cv look better? Or going back and completing my degree now look better on my cv?

i'm trying to work out if it's worth my while trying to go for a corporate scheme to cover a graduate diploma for me when i have absolutely zero interest in corporate law, and a heckalot of interest in other areas.

Totally ruled out being a barrister. It looks quite fun and something I would be good at but tbh I cba.

You would have to do your (probably) 2 year training contract there though and I think most places expect you to stay on if they've invested that much in you. Other non-magic circley type firms will fund you through the gdl too. What area are you interested in?

starting to think i cba with barrister stuff either. all the barrister-y """WORK EXPERIENCE""" >>>>>> solicitor type work stuff i did, and advocacy >>>>>>>> paperwork, but yeah... the failure vs. success rates are a bit depressing.

what area/areas are you interested in? not entirely sure myself but contract/finance law are more or less definite noes.

but it's more of an underpinning staple for lots of different branches rather than just the cumbersome content of most contracts (shipping, building, mercantile zzzzzz)Plus I was more interested in the theories of the nature and basis of contracts and stuff like that. In practice its all very different though as you know and you don't get to do all the cool fun stuff about Atiyah on the GDL.

I'm not interested in criminal law. There's nothing very intellectually stimulating there. On the one hand its very statute based and on the other very jury dependant so there's not much room for legal reasoning really, I guess.

Public law is my absolute favourite. More administrative law, constitutionals pretty quaint but only good if you wanna be part of some constitutional reform quango or something so far less useful. I don't now if it just makes me weird but administrative law is kind of fascinating, especially when you consider different countries systems and attitudes towards it. It's like a living history of the state. Some of the concepts that are developing - substantive legitimate expectation if that means anything to anyone, proportionality and the purpose of the HRA, all very interesting. God I love rationalising principles.

along with Company and EU. Fun funf funfunfun. But then I'm doing pishy erasmus subjects for the rest of the year: "We Creatures of Law" "How to write a television contract" "History of Medieval Law" "Sports law"

the actual basis and principles of it make for really interesting reading and studying, but actually working within the confines of "contract law" as a career seems pretty dull, from what i can tell.

think you're probably being a bit harsh on criminal law. well, you're maybe being a bit harsh on the more exciting aspects of criminal law, although considering the vast majority of it seems to consist of drug offences and the like i guess you're right. but i have found criminal law to be the most immediately appealing, although i'm way too tired/incoherent to try and even remember, let alone explain why i think so.

public law is amazing yeah. i just wanna be michael mansfield or something idk.

I have one under my belt as part of my degree, yearlong styley, and even that hasn't meant I'm employed right now. They do not give a shit about your degree once you have it. It is experience experience experience. Are you involved in SU stuff, societies etc? If not I'd recommend getting involved.

It's what you can put on your cv that makes it stand out. What makes yours different to someone who got the same qualifications as you.
At uni I'm a member of the marketing team and forensics society and again in every job interview I've been too I've been asked about both of them

If your university operate an upgrade system... whereby you need an average of over a certain percentage - usually 65-67% - and then a number of first class marks in your final year for individual modules... you can work your arse off in final and get a first. I came agonisingly close in the end, which really surprised me due to some of my second year grades.

is not a disaster in the grand scheme. For too many years, post-graduates have left education with a sense of entitlement. Over-reliance and pressure on students earning degrees has greatly diminished UK industries, especially entrepreneuralism.

The concept of joining a company at the bottom and working (hard) to the top is a strategy lost on many. Though traditionally, the most successful.

and I have to admit I find your rather superior post mildly offensive. I am happy to join at the bottom and earn dirt pay. The problem is that right now, people are trying to suggest to me that I should be working for them for free, or for 'expenses' only. Our economy doesn't run on free. I can't exist on free. I want to contribute, I want to pay my taxes, I want to consume and I want to play my part. I can't do that on 'expenses'.

obviously expenses only internships should be eradicated. However, being happy to join at the bottom makes you an exception. In recent years, most acquire a fairly standard degree and anticipate that as a divine right to a prestigious job. What's happening, is merely a gentle correction to the way translation from education to work used to materialise.

I mean the concept of self-employment, or creating your own wealth is actively discouraged. Putting people through excessive education then fast-tracking them straight into government employment, was the recipe for our economic disaster. Hence why everyone is struggling to seek/gain a job now.

"Putting people through excessive education then fast-tracking them straight into government employment, was the recipe for our economic disaster. Hence why everyone is struggling to seek/gain a job now."

Complete and utter bollocks. Substitute 'financial sector' for 'government' and you might be on the right lines.

don't possess degrees, or barely any credible academic qualifications. Coupled with the recession and extreme lack of private sector job creation, I'm intrigued how you could mount a valid case to disagree.

If I remember correctly, they had someone on that said that roughly 30% of 'UK directors' (term wasn't defined) worked their way up from the bottom. While I agree with you that it's a career route too often discounted, I doubt those that take it and succeed with it are in the majority.

I'm going to require you to find me some statistics to say that the majority of Britain's wealthiest entrepreneurs don't possess degrees, 'cos I still think that's a claim you've plucked from thin air. Even if we do accept your claim, the majority of Britain's wealthiest entrepreneurs are in their 40s, 50s or 60s, and from a generation of which fewer people went to university. The majority of the entrepreneurs that are in their 20s and 30s now would have gone to university, and many of them (especially those that have made their money from technology and the web, using the skills they learnt at university) are much, much richer at their age than many of the older ones. In twenty years time all of the top entrepreneurs will be of the generation that went to university.

like Steven Jobs co-founder of Apple and CEO of Pixar Animation? Or would that be Bill Gates founder of Microsoft? Or Michael Dell? Probably the three biggest benefactors of technology and web entrepeneuralism, all without academic qualifications. So really, your point has no subtance whatsoever.

Ignoring the fact that Steve jobs, Bill Gates and Michael Dell are all in their 40s and 50s, so fall into the former category, every single one of them went to university.

Despite dropping out before completing their courses, do you really think that any of them would have got where they are today if they hadn't gone to Harvard and spent all that time in the labs and met all of the people that would go on to form their companies and their networks? No, they wouldn't have.

Look at all the young wealthy 'entrepreneurs' in the world now. Of those that made their own money (rather than inheriting it), nearly all of them are tech graduates or former students.

it's obvious you're of the liberal elite, you perceives University as the be-all and end-all. Probably working for the government. I finished college and started my own business from nothing, now employing 38 people. Most friends all around 28-30, who didn't go are better off than those you did. I speak from experience.

As for my replies. They're in the correct place. Today's a new day, you don't have to be a total cunt this one.

One of the main justifications for tuition fees (made, largely, by those that didn't go to university) was that, on average, graduates earn much more than non-graduates. Of course, that assumes that you take wages as the be all and end all, which obviously, they're not.

Oh, btw, I don't work for the government and you kinda do have to go to university to be an architect, which is what I am.

University is the better option for a lot of people; not going to university is the better option for some people.

I'm starting to see light at the end of the tunnel - done some relevant internships (relevant being the keyword here) and am slowly building the key skills I require to make my CV look pretty half-decent. Just whore yourself out there and even if you've not got yourself anywhere once you've graduated, it is no biggie - you've got all your life to sort things out.
And if not that... jeremy kyle is on TWICE a day. And there's normally a Come Dine With afternoon marathon on C4

Did a placement and worked through uni so my CV is looking quite healthy. Trying to save money for the LPC and generally enjoying what's going to be the first year of my life that wasn't spent in education.

Takeshi's Castle is also on three times a day, so I can fit it round watching Malcolm in the Middle.

I was fortunate enough to get a place on a graduate scheme that started the summer I graduated, but while I'd had a year in industry and all that stuff I'm convinced that much of what helped was the 'extra-curricular' stuff I'd got on my CV. In particular, heavy involvement with the football club I support's Supporters Trust (setting it up, on the board etc) and distance running, including raising money for charity (helped by interview being the day after I'd run the London Marathon).

If you can draw the transferable skills out of that sort of thing in your application and interview it'll give you an edge over a simlar person that has a brief interests section just saying 'I like film and music' or similar without any evidence of involvement.

Obviously career related experience is more valuable, but don't neglect the personal side either.

I'm starting my own German-themed coffee franchise called Das Kaffe. Don't have any shops open yet but I've been working hard on the menu.

- Das Kaffe (this is filter coffee)
- Deustchlander (this is the equivalent of an Americano)
- Milchenkaffe (latte)
- Scholkoladebrau (mocha)
- Das Macchiato (macchiato)
- Doppel Espreßo
- Bratwurst sasuages, sauerkraut etc available as snacks, also sandwiches with really big lettuce leaves in like you get in that part of the world

You see, for years coffee shops in this country- even the explicitly American ones like Starbucks- have bought in to an imagined 'coffee culture' of Italian sophistication. But Italy is nowadays less associated with the sophistication of the Renaissance than it is with the cartoonishly corrupt rule of Silvio Berlusconi and large piles of refuse uncollected on the streets of Napoli. These are not positive values for a coffee chain to extol. But Germany, for a large period in the 20th century tainted with the memory of the Nazis, is nowadays associated with hard-work, thrift, honesty, a still-thriving manufacturing sector, good football and success. And if there's one thing everybody needs after, before and during a long day working hard and successfully, its a great coffee. Its a Das Kaffe.

but do as much stuff as you can to make your CV stand out now while you've still got free time. I was OK getting a job after graduating because I'd already been working for 4 years and had done loads of transferable skills stuff. My little sister just graduated with a first but was incredibly lazy outside of her studies so is having a bitch of a time now.

- studying in Helsinki for a semester (and learning Finnish lol)
- starting a local history society and organising events and a society blog
- helping out at a legal advice centre
- doing political party stuff
- vacation scheme at a firm

I did 5 internships (all philosophy-related), graduated top of my year in Philosophy but they still won't let me to a masters in philosophy because I didn't go to "Hegel camp", despite my having never heard of it previously. They said they handed out pamphlets. I must have been sick that day. :'(

Next year they're setting up a wall in the student's union with automated (well, peddle-based) whips that you can use to beat yourself on the back to enhance your CV. Its a good scheme because 12 hours on the wall is the equivalent of a summer placement, although you do have to provide them with the photos to prove you went deep enough into the flesh. This saves a lot of labour time. Too bad I won't be there to enjoy it, eh?

pretty sure he just sat in weed cafes in Amsterdam and thats why his discourses read like "woah wtf dude I'm such a genius what if this table doesnt even exist. aahhh this wax is on fire aaaaaah. oh is it not? oh thats *interesting* hmm" We can pinpoint (on cartesian coordinates no less)exactly when triangles become hipster, through the ontological argument.

Also helps if mummy and daddy sent you to a big fancy Jesuit military toff school.